Content marketing and blogging have proven to
be effective digital marketing methods. Done right, they can generate leads and
convert people to the next stage of your marketing funnel.
Yet, plenty of company blogs completely
struggle to meet their content marketing goals. For one reason or another, they
fail to find the right audience — or, for some, any audience at all.
Other blogs earn plenty of traffic but
lackluster conversion numbers. Still others have myriad issues of their own
related to various mistakes in strategy, positioning, site design and more.
To help you pinpoint where your issues may lie
and how you can improve your blog performance, we have come up with five
reasons why your current blog may not be working. These observations come from
common company blog mistakes in the industry and how the top blogs fix them to
find success.
You Don’t Have Your Target Audience in Mind
Before you write a new blog, you should always
stop to check in with your audience goals. Namely: who is this blog for?
Consider your ideal target audience based on
who you think will help you succeed in your business goals. If, for instance,
you are a B2B software company, you may assume that your audience has at least
a small level of expertise in your line of work. But if you are a financial
services provider to a typical consumer, then you are going to have to cover
even the most basic concepts to ensure your audience can keep up.
By the same token, you have to think about
things your audience would be interested in reading. For instance, while
someone in IT may be excited about “a new way to configure proxy servers,” the
average consumer will want to know less about the solution itself and more
about the benefits it offers. Looking at the latter type, they may need a
headline that reads something like “New Method for Connecting Online Makes
Actions Happen in Nanoseconds,” or something similar.
Think about what your audience needs to see to
understand the point you’re trying to make, and think about the emotional
triggers that can spur them to be interested enough to click. When you can
understand what these needs, expectations and emotional triggers are, you can
earn a higher volume of clicks from targeted audience groups.
Your Level of Quality Is Low
Spelling, grammar, and structure are all
critical when writing blog entries. We say this not just because people will
split hairs online (and they will), but more because rampant issues affect readability.
If your sentence don’t make sense, no one will
be able to understand your point. If you misspell words, people may be confused
as to what you meant to say. Use a spell checker, and have someone with a solid
sense of grammar review your posts for publication.
As for structure, try to lay out your blog in
a way that makes it skimmable. Instantly start with a topic introduction that
tells people what they will get out of reading. Then, break up your main point
into several sub-topics that are easily read in small bite sizes.
Try to let one thought flow into the next.
Make sure that almost everything you say builds off the last point, and always
stay focused on the central purpose of your post. Getting feedback from others
and rereading your post drafts after an hour or so of writing them can both
help you think more like your audience and write more persuasive, compelling
articles.
Your Blog Titles Aren’t Interesting
Certain approaches to headline writing can
grab our attention, while others simply don’t work. If you find you have low
conversions for your blog posts through search engines or social media, maybe
your titles are to blame.
You can reference this guide to the most popular headlines
on Facebook from
Buzzsumo to get you started. Rand Fishkin of Moz also has a [handy suggestion for writing short yet compelling\\
headlines](https://moz.com/blog/writing-headlines-seo-social-media)
that don’t leave anything out.
You Don’t Have a Strong Call to Action
With limited exceptions, most business blogs
will want to close out with a strong call to action (CTA). This section comes
after the argument being made is completely wrapped up. It then instructs the
reader on what they should do next in order to find even more information or
benefits.
Example calls to action include:
●Take a look at our product page…
●Sign up for our email list…
●View further information for an
upcoming course/webinar/event…
●Visit a service page for more
information…
●Contact us to start the
conversation…
●Read our other content…
Whatever your call to action is, make sure it
is clear and written as a strong command or suggestion. While that may seem
pushy, people respond better to messages written in this format and remember
them more clearly.
You’ll start to notice that most marketers do
this, too. A commercial would never say “consider visiting our store during our
sales event.” Instead, they would lead with a commanding verb: “Come visit our
store during our one-day sales event to get incredible savings!”
You Don’t Have the Right Landing Pages and Lead Capture Forms to Guide Your Audience to the Next Step
Sometimes when you can’t convert blog readers,
the issue isn’t the blog itself but the website ecosystem around it.
Put simply: make sure that your calls to
action lead to compelling landing pages or website pages. These pages should
capture audience interest and further direct them to the next step.
If you don’t have anything like this
available, make one! Even something as simple as a custom “Contact Us” landing
page can help you convert more people compared to linking to your normal
Contact Us page.
For normal website pages you want to link to,
like explanations of your services, ensure that the page guides the reader
through the most important information and benefits first, concluding in yet
another strong CTA.
You may not even need a landing page link to
accomplish certain goals. For instance, many websites have found that email
address capture forms displayed adjacent to blog content work better than a
custom landing page.
Just make sure that any forms present on your
content are short and involve minimal work. Their placement should also not
disrupt the reader’s ability to digest the content at their own pace.
Let Data Tell You About the Company Blog Mistakes You’re Making
The above suggestions work well in general,
but you need to know what _you’re_
blog
has to change to get better performance.
To learn what that might be, look to your own
data. You can configure Google Analytics for free to inform you about where,
exactly, your blog is failing you.
A low click through rate (CTR) on organic
search means that maybe your titles or meta descriptions need work, for
instance. A decent readership but low conversions means you need more
convincing calls to action and easier access to the next step for readers. A
high bounce rate means that people were intrigued by your headline, but didn’t
like what they saw when they clicked.
Study your data, pledge to work on best
practices, and write for your audience. These approaches will help you get
better performance from your company blog in 2018 as you make marginal
improvements over time.